slew him on the instant, that the camp
Might read in blood a soldier's swerveless law.

"Blame not your General!"--pointing to the slain,--
The wise, severe Epaminondas said,--
"I was not cruel, comrades, for 't is plain
I only left him, as I found him, dead!"

IRON-CLAD SHIPS AND HEAVY ORDNANCE.

The new system of naval warfare which characterizes the age was proposed
by John Stevens of Hoboken during the War of 1812, recommended by
Paixhans in 1821, made the subject of official and private experiment
here and in Europe during the last ten years especially, subjected to
practical test at Kinburn in 1855, recognized then by France and England
in the commencement of iron-clad fleets, first practised by the United
States Government in the capture of Fort Henry, and at last established
and inaugurated not only in fact, but in the principle and direction of
progress, by the memorable action of the ninth of March, 1862, in the
destruction of the wooden sailing-frigates Cumberland and Congress by
the steam-ram Merrimack, and the final discomfiture of that powerful and
heavily armed victor by the turreted, iron, two-gun Monitor.

The consideration of iron-clad vessels involves that of armor, ordnance,
projectiles, and naval architecture.

ARMOR.

_Material_. In 1861, the British iron-plate committee fired with
68-pounders at many varieties of iron, cast-steel and puddled-steel
plates, and combinations of hard and soft metals. The steel was too
brittle, and crumbled, and the targets were injured in proportion to
their hardness. An obvious conclusion from all subsequent firing at
thick iron plates was, that, to avoid cracking on the one hand, and
punching on the other, wrought-iron armor should resemble copper more
than steel, except that it should be elastic, although not necessarily
of the highest tensile strength. Copper, however, proved much too soft.
The experiments of Mr. E.A. Stevens of Hoboken, with thick plates,
confirm this conclusion. But for laminated armor, (several thicknesses
of thin plates,) harder and stronger iron offers greater resistance to
shot, and steel crumbles less than when it is thicker. The value of hard
surfaces on inclined armor will be alluded to.

_Solid and Laminated Armor compared. Backing_. European experimenters
set out upon the principle that the resistance of plates is nearly as
the square of their thickness,--for example, that two 2-inch plates are
but ha